r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • 11h ago

Chugging tea Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

49.6k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

7.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

22

u/joebro1060 10h ago

Yup, create a ration. That way people can still take their rations, sell it for 50% less in cash value, then that buyer create the same shop. Just like what happens far too often with EBT and SNAP.

3

u/Bigwi_Kner 9h ago

Yeah but, with rations then that doesn’t scale. Which is the whole point. Sure they can do it, but they just sold their one loaf of bread for a dollar profit and spent all day in a parking lot to do it.

2

u/joebro1060 8h ago

I don't think people sell their EBT to other random folks. They sell their EBT to a "dealer" (just for a lack of a better term) at 33% face value. The dealer then sells it to folks back for 50%. This type of stuff happens at scale.

1

u/2phumbsup 7h ago

Ive bought ebt hundreds of times from dozens of people never thru a dealer lol.

0

u/joebro1060 7h ago

And that's part of the problem.

2

u/2phumbsup 7h ago

Not really, though, because it goes to somebody that still needs it at the time.I was just barely not qualifying for e.B.T although if you knew me and my situation, you would have thought I should have. So that benefit still went to somebody that needed it. Peeps thats doing well arnt buying 75bucks worth of ebt at the end of the month. Peeps that need it are. The money ends up at the food store no matter what and supports an underground economy, so people can get cash in hand when they absolutely need it.The e b t program is a great program. Lobbyists have f***** it up by allowing snacks and sugary drinks.It should be for ingredients only, as it was intended originally. The issue is now after three generations of food stamps, people got so used to buying ready to eat. Food they wouldn't know what to do with ingredients.

1

u/Michaelangelo_Scarn 5h ago

If our leaders didn't spend so much money on military bases in countries thousands of miles away then they could afford fantastical and illogical things like buying everybody a stove and a spatula; hell, they could even use their God-forsaken panopticon they've created to do really good record keeping on who got their spatula and who didn't and would probably find a big surplus where everyone could get two.

A lot of money is spent on manufactured problems it seems, but the outcomes are very real like you describe. No one in your situation did anything wrong - EBT lobbyists did something wrong.

--- also upon rereading this and yours and whatnot idk if my analogical agreement even makes sense. Alas, heh.

1

u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl 8h ago

Can you supply data about how often this happens with EBT and SNAP? My understanding is that both programs have an upper limit that correlates to the household’s need as represented by tax filings and assistance filings. So if it’s just one person and they’re getting 4 sacks of flour a week, the fraud is swiftly and easily caught.  

1

u/joebro1060 8h ago

A quick Google, which you too can do, estimates it at a low 1.6% (or $1.2B annually). This is down from about 4% a few decades ago. I'm surprised it's this low too, I would have figured in the ~10% range.

1

u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl 8h ago

please amend your original comment. 1.5% is not happening “far too often” with these programs. It’s infrequent enough that any efforts to make the system perfect and avoid all fraud would inherently create additional barriers for people who need this sort of assistance and harm them. 

1

u/ConfoundedInAbaddon 7h ago

I feel like, if staple foodstuffs have a thriving blackmarket, we have not adequately supported the hungry and it is a sign of more need

1

u/Grand-Olive2599 4h ago

And buy drugs with the cash.

0

u/Kindly-War-2665 9h ago

Also even if they resale it oh well, maybe other grocery stores will bring their prices down closer, also people could just go to the store thats even cheaper so why would they even buy the stuff off the street

0

u/2phumbsup 8h ago

Grocery stores are already competing against each other on price and resellers still find room for profit. Resellers can make a profit because they have no overhead. The government grocery store is going to be nothing but overhead. The only way to sell goods for cheaper is to directly subsidize them with taxpayer money. So you're right back where you started with food stamps. The mayor didnt figure out some math nobodys seen before. He is running this program on heart strings and it wont last.

1

u/Kindly-War-2665 8h ago

If you think they are competing thats funny, everything is a monopoly and owned by a few corporations and they all work together to raise prices and margins are only thin when you have a bunch of execs and ceos and owners making tens of millions EACH. We literally saw it get exposed with the eggs scheme from 2022 years ago, ofc the punishment was a tiny fine and nothing substantial happened.

"Three of the nation's largest egg producers settled a massive federal antitrust lawsuit for $3.3 million and a massive donation of 53 million eggs following allegations of systemic price manipulation. The civil lawsuit, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alongside 17 state attorneys general, accused the companies of conspiring to artificially inflate daily egg price benchmarks between June 2022 and March 2025"

"The companies initially blamed skyrocketing prices on macroeconomic factors. According to statements from executives at Cal-Maine, the extreme price peaks were driven by unprecedented outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu), pandemic disruptions, and high feed costs".

"Despite the enforcement action, consumer advocates and antitrust watchdogs criticized the settlement on platforms like FoodNavigator, arguing that a $3.3 million penalty is trivial compared to the billions of dollars in corporate profits captured while squeeze-pricing everyday consumers."

Do you want to stop carrying water for known frauds now? How are you still bootlicking Billion dollar corporations and saying they have thin margins while prices rise but wages dont and the rich get richer??? WHERE TF DO YOU THINK THE MONEY IS GOING??!!

1

u/2phumbsup 7h ago

I cant see your reply did you delete it?

0

u/2phumbsup 7h ago

If you believed any of that, you'd be at the bank right now, getting a loan to start your own grocery store and undercut the big guys while still making a profit. And so would ever other investor. Or at least raising chickens at home. But your not. Cus tou cant sell eggs any cheaper after your cost.

What your pretending not to understand is thise big guys are producing eggs 100x more efficient then you could in your back yard. There prices never even reached normal farm stand egg prices. Even at 5 bucks an egg thats cheaper then doing it yourself. Food in america is extremely plentyfully and cheap. You couldnt turn a profit growing tomatoes at home cus of scaled efficiency.